


the day is done (but here comes the sun)

by missymeggins



Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-12
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins/pseuds/missymeggins
Summary: Post KnockoutIt's not how he wanted to tell her.
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle





	the day is done (but here comes the sun)

_the day is done (but here comes the sun)_ | **castle** ; castle/beckett | g | 4, 147 words | post knockout

  
  


  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
It's not how he wanted to tell her. 

There had been moments, of fear and adrenaline, even of pure affection at times, when he could feel the words threatening to spill from his lips and it might have been so easy to just let them go but he hadn't. He'd held them in for so many reasons; because she had a boyfriend, because he didn't want to lose their friendship, because he was afraid. But mostly it was because being in love with her was the truest thing to happen in his life since having Alexis and he just wanted her to understand that. 

He never meant to tell her in the heat of the moment. He never meant to tell her in a way that would make it easy for her to dismiss or disbelieve.

(But then, he also never expected to see her on the ground like that either. It had begun to seem incomprehensible, the idea that Beckett – badass, bulletproof Beckett – could actually fall. It turns out there was a limit to even Richard Castle's imagination and that was it. How cruel then, he thinks, that reality could encroach on imagination in such an insidious way.)

For months those three words have lived inside him, twisting and tearing at him constantly, while he tried to find the courage to make them known. And now he doesn't know what to do with them because they're out there, in the world – in reality – but there's no way of knowing what they'll mean to his life because it all hangs in the balance of whether she lives or dies. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The paramedics pry him away from her and no matter how much he tries to make them understand - “I'm her partner! Her friend. Her plucky sidekick _dammit!_ ” - they won't let him ride with her. 

(There is so much grief in his voice that they _do_ understand what she means to him, even if he doesn't say the words, but it's not up to them to ease his fear; they're just doing their job.)

He watches the doors close and quietly comes undone. Martha and Alexis stand on either side of him, holding him up until he's ready to move again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In the ambulance she slips in and out of consciousness as the paramedics work to keep her alive. She's aware only of pain and that she's trying so hard to find his face but she can't. 

She's never been so scared in her life. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She's already in surgery when they arrive at the hospital. Castle plants himself in a chair while Martha and Alexis exchange glances and quickly realise that it's a waste of breath to try and talk him into going home to sleep so, just as they did at the cemetery, they take their post on either side of him – Alexis with her hand threaded through his and Martha with an arm around his shoulder. 

And then they wait. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There's a a quiet moment amongst all the chaos when, looking at the assembled mass of people who love Kate Beckett, he suddenly realises that Josh isn't there. It's a kick to the stomach and he doesn't know what to do. 

He _wants_ to simply wait by her side until she wakes up. He _wants_ to know what to say to the nurses he keeps begging for information from when they ask him who he is. _Family?_ No. _Partner?_ Sort of. _Boyfriend?_ Only in fiction. Somehow, “I'm hopelessly in love with her and I think she has feelings for me too but we never talk about it,” doesn't seem to make much sense to them. 

But the realisation that Josh doesn't yet know won't leave him alone. He doesn't think he should have to be the one to tell him but Ryan and Esposito have entered full on detective mode - it's how they deal - and are pacing the hallways with their phones glued to their ears as they run down every possible lead they have on the shooter. Lanie has been by Jim's side since they arrived, ready to translate whatever medical information the doctor's throw at them in their hurry. Alexis and Martha are huddled together beside him, both asleep. It's just him. 

It occurs to him that if this had happened only a week earlier, it would probably have been Roy to step up and make the phone call to Beckett's boyfriend because he had always risen above the complications of the relationships around him. He wouldn't have cared that Castle loved her (and wanted to be the only one who did); he would have simply made the call anyway because it was the right thing to do. 

So he thinks of the Captain and pushes his selfishness aside. Josh deserves to know. And Kate deserves to see him there when she wakes up. 

(He makes a bargain with _whoever_ it is up there, despite having never really been a religious man; he won't care that it can't be him standing at her side when she wakes – just so long as she _does_ wake. There is nothing he's not willing to trade for her life in this moment.)

He finds his phone and starts making calls. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They sit in silence, on opposite sides of the waiting room, both pretending not to be aware that they're struggling with the same fear and pain, pretending not to know that they _both_ love her. 

It's an unusual kind of symmetry and when at last a doctor enters the room and they both stand, anxious to hear the news. 

“She's going to be okay. She's pretty beat up and it might take a while...” 

_She's alive._ He doesn't hear anything else. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
When she wakes the first thing she sees is her dad's face and in the haze of her pain she reaches out, fingers brushing his cheek, trying to understand why she's not seeing Castle. 

“Katie, sweetie,” he chokes out and she closes her eyes against the fear and relief she hears in his voice. She breathes for a moment before opening her eyes again and when she does, this time all she sees is his face. 

“I'm sorry I scared you,” she whispers and she can feel the tears that trickle down the side of her cheek while her dad holds her hands between his. 

  
  
  
  
  
Each morning she continues to wake with her dad at her bedside holding her hand. For the first few days they don't talk much; she's too tired and she doesn't know where to begin. For Jim's part he's just so relieved to see her with her eyes open that nothing else seems important. 

But by the third day she wakes to his face there's a question in her head that she can't hold in any longer and she feels the words slip out before he's even had a chance to say good morning.

“Have you seen Castle?”

Her dad smiles a little but it doesn't warm her heart the way it should. She senses there's something behind it she doesn't understand and tells herself she must remember to question him later. 

“He's here, sweetie. Has been every day.”

“He hasn't been in to see me.” (She doesn't mean for it to sound so petulant but there's comfort in knowing her dad has heard much worse from her lips and she knows he'll never judge her for it.)

“They're only letting family in at the moment Kate. He's been trying to convince them to let him in but they're sticklers for the rules.”

She closes her eyes, relieved at least that there's a reason he's not sitting beside her. (Even so, there's a restlessness in her bones that she knows won't fade until she sees him but she's content enough – she hasn't the energy to be anything else – to wait. For now.)

“Josh has been here too,” Jim continues slowly. “He hasn't been able to stay but he asked me to tell him when you could have other visitors.”

Josh. _Oh._

It bothers her that his name comes as such a surprise. She hasn't even thought it since she woke up. The only name that's made itself heard in her head has been Castle's. She wants to feel guilty but she doesn't have the energy for that either. 

“Can you tell him,” she starts, stumbling momentarily as she tries to figure out how that sentence should end before conceding to herself that there really isn't any right way. 

“I don't know dad. Just tell him I'm still too tired for visitors anyway and he shouldn't feel bad.” 

It's not a lie - she is too tired for visitors – but nor is it the real reason she isn't ready to see him. Still, it's the best she can do considering the circumstances.

“Okay,” Jim nods but she can see he's preoccupied; Josh is far from his main concern either. The truth is he's never seen her with any injury worse than the sprained ankles and scrapes and bruises she had as a kid. She knows this must have been hard for him.

She squeezes his hand and tries to make her voice sound less tired. “I'm okay dad.”

“This time.” 

He catches her off guard with his bluntness. It's been a long time since she's heard him talk like this about her chosen profession. Not since she was a rookie really. Somewhere early on he simply learned to accept that she'd chosen this – for reasons he could understand – and they made it a point not to talk about the dangers she might have to face. It was easier that way. 

He looks at her for a moment, as if trying to determine whether he can actually say what's on his mind, and then starts to speak. She can see him choosing his words carefully and understands; this is the conversation she wouldn't let him have with her last week when she told him there were new leads in Johanna's murder. 

“Katie, I know you want to find the truth and I understand that, I do. And I don't think I have it in me to _tell_ you to leave it alone. It's not like you'd listen to me anyway, you've always been stubborn that way,” he says, and there's the tiniest quirk to his lips like he's remembering the way he tried to tell her she couldn't date a foreign prince when she was sixteen, but then it's gone again and he's just sitting in a hospital room with his daughter because she got shot. 

“I understand why you think you can't let it go but Katie you have to realise what it's doing to the people who love you. No one wants to stand by and watch you lose yourself in it again. And we sure as hell don't want to see you get yourself killed over it.”

He doesn't even try to hide the raw emotion in his voice and she hates herself just a little for not being able to just ease his mind and say 'Okay daddy' like she would when she was six and he asked her to do something for him. Instead she simply tells him the truth. 

“I need to know Dad. I just need to know what happened to her, to know who thought they had the right to decide to take her from me. From us.”

“Okay,” he accepts, “but I'm begging you to find a way to do it without letting it rule your life. Without letting it be more _important_ than your life. You and I both know she would never have wanted that.”

It's far from the first time she's heard that argument used as a reason for her to stop. She's heard it from Royce, she's heard it from Lanie, from Montgomery and from Castle. But it's the first time she's ever heard it from her dad and it makes more of a difference than she ever knew it could. 

“So then what do I do?” she asks, feeling - probably for the first time since her mother's murder - like a little girl with no idea how to handle the world around her.

He squeezes her hand gently and strokes her hair. “You just keep living Katie.”

  
  
  
He comes to the hospital each day, hoping to be allowed to see her, only to be told time and again that it's just family for now.

(He doesn't understand why they get to decide the definition of 'family' and Alexis and Martha quickly become familiar with that particular tirade. Of course, it's not like they disagree; to them Kate Beckett _is_ family whether she herself knows it or not. That became a fact for them long before all this happened.)

So each day he simply sits in the waiting room, just in case someone comes to their senses and changes their mind. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She can't sleep and through the throbbing pain, for which her prescribed painkillers do little to dull, her thoughts turn her father's words over in her head. 

_You just keep living. You just keep living. You just keep living._

And then her mind takes it for a spin and turns it into something else. _You just keep talking._

(It strikes her that these words – both her dad's and her own variation – are so similar to what Montgomery himself had said just weeks earlier; _you just keep showing up_. It shouldn't surprise her really. The universe seems to delight in making it's point through the people around her. )

The problem with being shot – besides the actual _getting shot_ part – is that the recovery is slow and it's too easy to think. In fact, it's damn near impossible _not_ to think and there's very little to distract her. 

It's almost painful how those last few days have been replaying themselves in her mind. And she's surprised to realise that she's far more conflicted about Rick – _Castle_ (she doesn't even _know_ anymore) – than she is about Roy, or even her mother's murder. Because the thing is, those issues are clear for her. 

One day she _will_ find the whole truth about her mother's death – but she understands now that she has to temper that need, lest it control her again. (Acceptance is hard, and it won't come easily she knows, but there's something about a bullet, her father's face and Castle's voice that remind her of it's necessity. She really doesn't want to lose herself in it again.) And no matter what mistakes Roy made as a rookie, she refuses to let it invalidate all the good that he did in his career or, more importantly, the good person that she has always known him to be. She won't let Lockwood - or whoever is really pulling the strings - take that from her, not when they've already taken so much. 

But with Castle everything's a little foggier. It's never seemed simple with him.

The memory of his frustration – “We _never_ talk about it” – is that much worse because she's afraid that they will slip right back into that same pattern now. She's afraid it will be all too hard to do anything else. He's always taken his cue from her and given the circumstances she knows it's a lot to expect him to bring it up.

“ _It_ ,” she thinks to herself. How typical of her, that even in her thoughts she has trouble actually laying out the truth of things where he's concerned.

The _truth_ is (she forces herself to think it) he told her he loved her while she watched his face fade from her vision. And perhaps the even deeper truth is that underneath all of her fear and confusion, she's quite sure she doesn't actually doubt it at all. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Is there a man out in the waiting room?” she asks the nurse who checks in on her in the morning. 

“Tall, handsome, can't sit still?” the nurse queries with a slight rise to her lips. (Kate wonders for a moment if he hasn't already tried to charm his way in here and she's actually a little surprised that it hasn't worked.)

“That sounds like him,” she acknowledges with a brief grin. “Do you think you could ask him to come in please?”

The nurse pauses briefly, giving her an apologetic look. “You're only supposed to have family visitors at the moment, sorry.”

“Please,” she asks. “I know it's breaking the rules but...just please.” She can hear the need in her own voice and the nurse responds to it, nodding and giving her assent with a simple, “Okay.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing slowly to calm her nerves, then pulls herself into a sitting position, wincing slightly at the pain it causes her before settling back against the pillows, feeling a little more in control now that doesn't look completely helpless. 

“Hey,” she hears him say and looks up to find him loitering at the door uncertainly. It's odd to see him hesitant and it distracts her for a moment.

“Hey Castle,” she breathes out and the relief she feels at just seeing him and saying his name is so visceral she almost doesn't know what to do with it. 

There's conflict written all over his face, etched with fear and relief and nervousness and _love_. She sees it, right there in the way he looks at her and for a moment she's truly amazed at how wilfully she had blinded herself to it before. It's not new; it's been there for months.

“Get out of the doorway before one of the nurses see you and we both get in trouble,” she tells him, gesturing to the chair beside her bed.

At this he at least at grins. “Done,” he says, walking quickly to the chair beside her bed. “Those nurses are mean!”

His proximity hits her with more force than should be possible. She'd forgotten just how physical his presence in her life has become; she's gotten used to being able to feel him beside her every day and now that feeling overwhelms her because it's been absent for nearly a week now and the last time she can remember not seeing him for more than a day or two at a time was the summer before. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks her, breaking the silence for her and she's grateful because she's feeling too much right now to try and find words for herself. 

“Like I got shot,” she answers him simply and then, taking a longer look at his face adds, “You look tired.” 

“Well, you got shot,” he replies just as simply, as if that explains it all. (But then, maybe it does.)

She nods, doesn't even try to find words to respond because she knows it's fruitless. Instead she seeks to reassure him. “I'm doing better. Everything hurts, but I'm okay.”

“Of course you are. You're Kate Beckett.” (One day he might tell her just how afraid he was that being Kate Beckett wouldn't be enough to save her. But not today, not while she still looks so fragile and his heart hasn't quite stopped panicking yet.)

He smiles, and she smiles and for a relationship so complicated it shouldn't be so easy to be with him like this but it is and she's glad.

She knows it won't be so easy with Josh. 

(But maybe that's because she's had it backwards all this time and really it's with Castle that things are simple and with Josh that they're not.)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It's late when Josh appears at her doorway and Castle is just making his way out. Their acknowledgement of one another is limited simply to a brief nod as they pass and Josh makes straight toward her bed, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. 

“Hi,” he says and his face is full of concern. But that's all she sees, nothing more. She doesn't see the depth or variety of emotion she sees when Castle looks at her. It's probably not fair, because part of her knows there is a great deal more to Josh's feeling's for her than just concern but whatever there is, it isn't enough. 

“Josh,” she begins but he waves her off, glancing back at her doorway as if still expecting to see Castle there. 

“He's always here for you isn't he?” he says and it's not really a question but more an admission of the truth that's stood between them all this time. 

She doesn't answer because she doesn't want her words to be a confirmation of Josh's fears that he's not good enough. It's not that simple of course, but she fears that will be the feeling he takes away from this and she hates to think of it. 

“He is,” Josh continues, carrying the conversation by himself because it's not as if there actually is another side to it. This is just about the truth. 

“Every single day, as your partner, your friend. And I can't do that. I can't be who he is to you. Whatever it is, it's bigger than what we have so he'll always come first. I get that now. I'd have to be stupid not to,” he sighs. 

“I never meant to -” she tries to tell him but he cuts her off, not really wanting to hear the words, already knowing their cliché.

“I know that Kate,” he tells her calmly. 

(Later he'll let himself be a little angry over all of this. He'll go to the gym and pretend the punching bag is Castle's head for a little while. But he won't do it now and he won't direct it at her – even if he thinks she deserves just a little of it – because she doesn't need to carry any more guilt and he doesn't need to carry the shame of hurting someone like Kate Beckett. He doesn't want to be that kind of guy.)

“I'm sorry,” she tells him. 

“So am I. Let's just leave it that.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She wakes without her father's face to greet her. 

Instead there's Castle, sitting quietly in a chair behind the door. She's not sure if it's in order to hide better from the nurses who might kick him out or to give her space while she sleeps. It doesn't really matter, she feels nothing but comfort at seeing him there. 

He smiles when he sees she's awake and carries his chair over to her bed. “How are you feeling?” he asks her. 

She takes a deep breath, ignoring his question and instead letting herself hear Royce's words in her head. _'Now for the hard part kid.'_ She isn't going to let herself wonder. 

“When I got shot – you said you loved me.”

He blinks and looks away for a moment; he wasn't expecting. “I'm sorry for that,” he says quietly. 

“Because you didn't mean it?” she asks, forcing herself to keep going despite the way her stomach twists itself in knots. 

“No,” he says, voice steadying as he raises his eyes to hers. “I'm sorry because I didn't tell you in a better way. It wasn't supposed to be like that.”

“So, you did mean it,” she presses, hoping that for once they can move their words out of the shadows and just tell each other the truth. 

He smiles now. “Yes, I meant it. I meant it then and I meant it in all the moments I was too afraid to say it, and I mean it now. I'm completely in love with you.”

She's not quite sure how to absorb those words – she hadn't allowed herself time to actually think about what the result of this conversation would be – but she feels the smile form on her face like it's something completely beyond her control and she feels herself nodding as she looks at him. 

“Okay. So where do we go from here?” she asks. 

“That's up to you,” he replies seriously. (He wants her to understand that there's no pressure or expectations.)

“I think I'd like it to be up to _us_ if that's okay.” (She understands.)

“Does that mean...” he doesn't finish the sentence and she recognises his nervousness so she reaches for his hand and finishes it for him.

“It means you were right when you said I could be happy and I'd like to try that because getting shot isn't nearly as much fun as you'd think. And I'm done hiding.”

The way he smiles is almost enough to make her forget that she was shot. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


(He holds her hand for the rest of the morning; they talk a little and she sleeps a little but mostly they're just content to be. Together.)


End file.
